


Countdown

by Berseker



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, Mentions of past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5884867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berseker/pseuds/Berseker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Moreau joins the Trojans as soon as he can play again. He wasted too much time and resting feels wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Countdown

Jean Moreau joins the Trojans as soon as he can play again. He wasted too much time and it still feels wrong to rest, to recover, to stay in bed just because he’s sick and wounded and broken, to skip training just because he can’t walk.

He has played with broken fingers, he has played with a broken ankle, he has played with a head wound bleeding down his neck. He has fallen to his knees on court and when Riko glanced at him he got up and kept playing.

So he goes back as soon as possible, and then the countdown starts again, because there was always one in his head. How many years to graduation, then how many months, and he couldn’t wait to start counting the days. Jean is just too used to it to stop now, and it’s

twelve days until he wonders if it’s really necessary, because graduation stopped being this paradise at the end of the road, the impossible dream, the ultimate prize. He realizes he maybe might not need it – maybe - when he screws up and isn’t punished when the game is over - not even with extra laps, since he’s tired and recovering, says Jeremy and master – that is, the Coach – and Jeremy grins at him and pats his shoulder on his way to the showers.

Jean stands in the empty court, perfectly still, reeling from the adrenaline, thinking it must be a trick, he thinks Jeremy will make it as far as the switch light and then he’ll- stop. And laugh. And lock the door. And then he’ll say tell me what you deserve and Jean knows the answer’s better not be less than

eleven lashes or hits with the racket or punches to the face or laps around the court, no, not laps, he’ll get backhanded if he dares to say this, punishment is punishment and training is training. The right number is usually twelve but he can get away with anything above

ten because it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be smart of disrespectful and it won’t get Riko mad at him. More than he usually is. But the master and the captain leave and Jean is alone and then his knees go weak and he lets himself fall, and his heart hammers so loud he can’t hear anything else.

There’s nothing else to hear. He’s alone, he’s fine, he’s safe. Renee calls him at

nine to check how things are going, and she does it every day. This time she hears bewilderment in his voice and he doesn’t want to tell her why, even if she’d understand, she saw him at his worst (and she didn’t turn away, he saw her in quickly fading glimpses and he thought she was an angel, a fairy, real life wonder woman, a rainbow, sunlight in human form, she went to touch his face and then her hand hovered and she whispered dear God) so he just says, very carefully, that his new team is nice. That’s all. They’re nice.

They are, she says, they deserve every single one of those fair-play trophies. She tells him about what they did last year – the game, and the way they had the foxes’ back – and he listens to her voice and it’s so soothing (she was praying softly please Lord please please and didn’t stop praying for the whole ride back to Abby’s house). So for

eight weeks Jean lives like this, he plays, he trains, he talks to Renee, he tries to get used to the taste of freedom. He tries to not be an asshole, but it comes naturally and he can’t stop, and he cringes every time his new team forgive him with nothing but a glare and some muttering and sometimes even a joke, what is with you French people, they say, or there he goes again, or aren’t you just the sweetest, and then they roll their eyes and call him Jean Moron – the idiots – and he’s left floundering behind in conversation, trying to figure out what went wrong and how. Or what didn’t. Eight weeks of that means two months, sixty days, how many hours of love and forgiveness. Of Jeremy walking by his side every-fucking-where because he knows Jean can’t do it alone. Of people whose names he doesn’t know asking if he’s alright.

He explodes, like everyone knew he would. He insults each of them personally and the team as a whole, and their training and methods and morals and overwhelming suffocating niceness, and when he’s done there’s not a sound in the room but his heavy panting, he can’t stand it, so he throws the racket on the ground so hard it cracks and stomps out of the room.

He makes it as far as the gate and then he presses his head against the wall and he’s lost, he sinking to the ground and down, down, down, he’s lost in the rabbit hole because it’s this short lived dream against the

seven years since Riko beat that attitude out of him, and brought him from screaming-fighting-angry-mess to breaks-his-own-hand-when-ordered, and Jean can’t go back to being a fighter. He can’t do this, he can’t breathe, and Coach comes by his side and asks – did this help? And Jean flinches and he says very clearly – “No, Master. It did not.”

He hears the man sighing, because they’ve been through this before, it was the first thing he said to him was to drop this weird nonsense and go for coach, or sir if he absolutely had to. But he doesn’t say anything now and Jean breathes a little better because he’s kneeling and he’s showing respect and this feels right. For one brightly perfect second, he’s doing what he’s supposed to do.

Then Coach sits on the floor by his side and says talk to me. Jean obeys because there’s no choice, and tells him about the countdown. And just like that there’s

six people who know about it, if you count Jean himself. Coach, Renee, Neil, Kevin Day and Riko, and he wonders distantly if he should tell Jeremy and make it seven, but no, he doesn’t want anyone else feeling sorry for him.

“I was going to kill myself,” Jean says, rubbing his face, then his eyes, “I had it all planned, everything sorted out. It was part of the deal, you see, because we didn’t have guns in the Nest, of course, and we were always paired out, so it wasn’t possible. I still tried one time, with a shaving blade. It didn’t- I mean, obviously, it didn’t- quite work, and then-”

“They were mad,” Coach says, drily.

“Yes. They were very mad.”

So Riko cut him a deal. Or offered him a gift, since there was nothing Jean could give him in return.

“He told me he’d let me do it. If I made it as far as graduation night, and he said he’d make sure I would, he said he’d put a gun in my hand and he’d let me pull the trigger.”

“He was lying. There’s no way he’d arm you after all that he put you through.”

“No. He wasn’t. I’m sure he wasn’t. I’ve been counting the days to it since forever, now. I don’t even remember not thinking about it.”

And Riko knew Jean wouldn’t shoot him. They both knew he’d put that thing to his own head, and wouldn’t even pull the trigger until Riko said he could.

Coach sighs again.

“Next time you feel like doing that, you let me know, you hear me?”

Jean doesn’t know exactly how he reacts to that, but Coach frowns and quickly adds:

“Not for punishment, or any of that fucked up stuff. I just want to know. I want your word of honor that if you ever decide to off yourself, you’ll give me a fair warning.”

Jean knows what he’s doing, he knows it’s a trick. He knows the man just wants to secure a chance to talk him down if it ever comes to that. It makes his throat feel so, so tight, it brings a hot prickle to his eyes, and he nods. Coach nods back, grim and stern, and gives him

five minutes to get it together, then makes him go back and apologize to his team. He does, and they forgive him, because that’s what they do, and that night, Jeremy lays down

four simple rules for good behavior on court, and they are don’t insult anyone, don’t hit anyone, for God’s sake, don’t stomp out and one bonus rule that he can’t quite phrase, but it basically amounts to don’t be an ass. Jean knows what he means. He’s cold and haughty and superior, when he’s not crumbling. So the last rule is don’t be like that. They both know he can’t change but when he says ‘yes, captain’ in a subdued voice, Jeremy grins like he believes he can do it.

Three nights later, Jeremy goes to wake him up. Jean almost breaks his nose. And then he shatters into a million pieces, he’s suddenly back in the Nest and he just punched Riko and he scrambles out of bed and kneels on the floor, he’s sobbing and begging and Jeremy gives him the widest berth he can without actually leaving the room, locks the door and Jean waits for the beating of a lifetime.

Jeremy sits on the floor, wide-eyed, and waits in silence until he’s quiet, until the trembling stops, and then tells him to take the day off.

He sounds kind.

He sounds nice.

Then he leaves and Jean is alone with his thoughts. With a whole day ahead of him and nothing do to. No pain to expect, no punishment to suffer through.

He washes his face with cold water until he looks human again. Then he calls Renee. She picks up immediately and they agree to meet for coffee, and it takes him half an hour to make it there, stopping every

two steps to look around and make sure he’s not being followed, that he’s actually being rewarded after punching his captain, after breaking the man’s main rule, why, he could even leave if he wanted to. He’s still whole, he’s still safe.

He doesn’t leave.

He drinks the coffee and talks to Renee and goes back to the Trojans. They boo him playfully for being late, and Jean startles and then smiles. He bows to them in mock-reverence. Jeremy beams at him and pats his shoulder like nothing happened and for that

one brightly perfect second Jean believes he can heal.

After that, he drops the countdown for good.


End file.
